Lokayukta inquiry against Mehta in SRA row, says Maharashtra CM

M
Devendra Fadnavis (File photo)UMBAI: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced an investigation by the Lokayukta against housing minister Prakash Mehta and said that the state will request the anti-corruption authority to conduct an inquiry against industries minister Subhash Desai too for allegations that he denotified MIDC land to benefit private developers.

While replying to the opposition in both the Houses, Fadnavis said that Lokayukta ML Tahaliyani will probe all the allegations against Mehta, including the MP Mill compound case. TOI was the first to report on the irregularities in the SRA project at MP Mill compound in Tardeo.

Fadnavis said that the case of MP Mill compound goes back to 1999 and the inquiry will also look into permission given between 1999-2014.

He said that the land originally belonged to a private person which was acquired by the defence in 1946 and was handed to the state. “I started digging deep into the MP mill compound issue after the allegations were made, there were many skeletons unearthed and a thought come to my mind about Adarsh,” said Fadnavis. “All the permission in MP Mill compound were given in between 1999-2004. As per the property card the land is owned by defence and how can the previous government permit additional FSI on the defence plot,” Fadnavis said.

About the allegations against Desai, Fadnavis said, “Out of 16,909 hectares of denotified plots, 9,335 hectares

were denotified by the erstwhile government and only the notification has been issued by us. This government has denotified only around 7,000 hectares of land and it does not mean that corruption has happened in this case,” Fadnavis added.

He has also constituted a special investigation team comprising an IAS officer and economic offences wing staffers against senior IAS officer Radheshyam Mopalwar